Saturday, 3 October 2015

Lopping them off in London's Leicester Square

Visitors to London's famed Leicester Square today seldom know or learn that it was once the site of huge numbers of dissections of human and animal bodies. During the late 18th century, it was the location of the anatomy school of the renowned (and reviled) surgeon John Hunter. His bust graces the central area of the square, but it is unlikely that many visitors give it more than a passing glance. They are usually there for other reasons, which I won't go into here.

The younger brother of anatomist William Hunter, John learned his trade working for William, including the art of body snatching, which was the main source of corpses for dissection until 1830's. After serving as an army surgeon for several years, he set up his own school, which eventually settled in at the Square. The building, which also contained his house and extensive anatomical museum, now houses a pub.

Across the square lay the house of his friend the artist Joshua Reynolds, who had a strong interest in anatomy. Reynolds' house is now an All Bar One. Don't knock Progress.John Hunter dissected everything he could lay his hands on. His subjects included the famous Irish Giant, Charles Byrne or O'Brien, whose corpse he acquired against the deceased's wishes by bribing the man who had it, allegedly for the then enormous sum of 500 pounds. In the painting of Hunter below, one can see part of the giant's skeleton at top right.

Animals of all kinds, lower as well as higher, went under John's dissecting knives. He kept a large menagerie of animals at his suburban house at Earl's Court, including kangaroos he received from naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. Hunter married poet Jane Home Hunter, who wrote the lyrics to some of Haydn's English songs. John Hunter died of a heart attack in 1793 during a heated argument with the governors of St. George's Hospital, where he was head surgeon. His enormous anatomical collection, or what survives of it, now resides in the Hunterian Museum, at the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Among the exhibits is the skeleton of O'Brien (center).

It's fascinating stuff, but definitely not for the squeamish.Further Reading:Wendy Moore, The Knife ManDruin Burch, Digging up the Dead

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About Me

Following more than thirty years as a history professor, I am now doing freelance writing, editing, speaking, and consulting. I received my PhD. from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught history at the College of
Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina from 1974 until 2008.

My most recent non-fiction work,
Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) has received excellent reviews and was a co-winner of the SHEAR
Prize (2012) for best book on the history of the early American republic.

I have reviewed manuscripts for journals and academic publishers and
have consulted or done research on various historical projects for individuals,educational television,and organizations, including most recently, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Atlantic Studies, South Carolina Educational Television, and University of South Carolina Press.

I have recently completed a novel of the American Revolution entitled Garden of Liberty and am working on a second novel, about a London physician and the body snatching trade in the 1790's, tentatively entitled Wells of Death.

SKILLS: Writing, Editing, Researching, Consulting, Teaching, Public Speaking. AWARDS, PRIZES, HONORS: SHEAR Best Book Prize, Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, 2012, co-winner.Distinguished Professor, College of Charleston, 2002Governor’s Distinguished Professor, College of Charleston, 1998South Carolina Historical Association, Prize for Best Paper published in Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 1993-94Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Charleston, 1985

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS: Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Associate Editor, South Carolina Encyclopedia. Responsible for hundreds of entries on medicine and science, many of which I wrote myself. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.

Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial to the Progressive Eras. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.